Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-34, the safe social media act, and to how we can protect our children online while preserving the rights, freedoms and privacy of all Canadians. Before entering public life, I spent 26 years as an accountant. My work required me to examine details, identify risks and ensure that decisions were supported by sound evidence. In accounting, good intentions are important but they are not enough. If assumptions are wrong, controls are inadequate and accountability is missing, the results can be very different from what was intended. The same principle applies to this legislation. When it comes to protecting our children, we cannot afford to get the details wrong. As a member of Parliament for a rural riding, I regularly hear from parents and grandparents, educators and community members concerned about what children encounter online. These are real concerns raised around kitchen tables and in school hallways by families trying to do what is best for their children. Canadians want to know how they will protect their children from online predators and prevent harmful content from reaching them, and how technology companies can be held accountable. They also want to know how we can address these problems without creating new ones. Those are questions the House must consider as Bill C-34 moves through Parliament. The online environment has changed dramatically over the past generation. When I was growing up, a problem at school often stayed in the schoolyard. Today, an embarrassing picture, a cruel message or a video can be shared thousands of times in minutes. Cyber-bullying can follow a child home, strangers can contact young people directly and harmful content can appear without them ever searching for it. With the growing use of artificial intelligence, children are also interacting with chatbots without necessarily understanding the risks or consequences. These experiences have a devastating effect. Statistics Canada has reported that one in four Canadian youth aged 12 to 17 has experienced cyberbullying. The question is not whether children deserve protection; they absolutely do. The question is whether Bill C-34 would provide the protection effectively and proportionately while respecting Canadian rights. Parents can set rules and supervise device use and teach their children about online dangers but they cannot control the algorithms that determine what appears on screen, prevent every stranger from making contact or remove harmful content from platforms used by millions. Tech companies have responsibilities too. If a platform encourages endless scrolling, recommends increasingly disturbing content and fails to respond adequately when children are exposed, Canadians deserve answers. Companies should explain what they are doing, how quickly they respond and how their results are measured. Conservatives believe that technology companies must be held meaningfully accountable for the environments they create. Bill C-34 would propose requirements relating to safe design, age verification, harmful content complaints and transparency. It would also establish a digital safety commission of Canada to oversee and enforce those requirements. These are important objectives, but many practical details will depend on regulations developed after the legislation passes. What constitutes a safe design? How would effectiveness be measured? What evidence would demonstrate that children are actually safer rather than simply that the companies have changed their policies on paper? After 26 years in accounting, I know that accountability requires clear standards, reliable information and a way to verify results. Should we not expect the same from legislation intended to protect our children? We must also examine the proposed restrictions on social media accounts for those under 16. Australia’s experience with age-based restrictions raised important questions about compliance, workarounds and young users moving between platforms. How can the government demonstrate that Canada’s approach will produce better results? We must consider whether young people will use virtual private networks or other technologies to bypass restrictions. If the goal is to protect children, we need to know whether these measures would reduce exposure to harm or simply push it elsewhere. We must also consider the scope of the legislation. Children face online risks through gaming, messaging, livestreaming, and, increasingly, through artificial intelligence tools, not just traditional social media. Parents have raised concerns about online games where children can communicate with strangers. Would these environments be adequately addressed? How would the government determine which services fall within the rules? How would it prevent children from migrating to platforms with fewer safeguards? These questions deserve answers before we assume that the proposed framework would solve the problems. Protecting children and protecting privacy are not competing goals. We must be able to do both. If platforms would be required to verify users’ ages, what information would they collect? Would Canadians need to provide government identification, biometric data or other sensitive personal information? How would that be stored? How long would it be retained? What would prevent it from being used for other purposes? What would happen if it is exposed by a data breach? Canadians hear about data breaches and compromised data far too often, and a system designed to protect children must not expose children or adults to new privacy risks. We should explore age verification methods that minimize the collection and storage of personal information with strong safeguards and independent verification. My professional background taught me that protecting sensitive information requires clear controls and accountability. Those safeguards are essential to public confidence. The same principles apply to the proposed digital safety commission. The commission would have significant authority to develop guidelines, investigate complaints, conduct inspections, issue compliance orders and impose monetary penalties. That is considerable regulatory power, and it would need to be accompanied by strong checks and balances. How would Canadians challenge decisions they believe are unfair? What independent review would be available? How would procedural fairness be guaranteed? How would Parliament maintain actual oversight? These are not just technical questions. They concern how authority works within a free and democratic society. We need to be particularly careful when decisions about online content could affect legal expression. Online safety cannot rest with parents alone, but neither should it be the exclusive responsibility of government bureaucrats. Technology companies need to take responsibility for the systems they build and operate. They should be transparent about the risks their services create and the steps they take to address them. Parents need practical tools to guide their children’s online experiences. Law enforcement needs the tools to pursue people who exploit and abuse children. Parliament must ensure that any regulatory framework is clearly defined and proportionate, and that it has the proper mechanisms for meaningful accountability. We should also learn from previous legislative efforts, including the stated objectives of Bill C-11 and Bill C-63. However worthwhile and grand they seem, this must never prevent us from scrutinizing a bill’s mechanisms, consequences and the powers it would create. If, as I expect, Bill C-34 proceeds to committee, we will have an opportunity to hear from a wide variety of witnesses, including parents, child safety experts, privacy specialists, social media companies, law enforcement, and legal experts. We should examine the evidence, identify gaps and pursue practical improvements. Above all, we should determine whether these measures would work, whether they could be enforced, whether they would protect privacy and whether they would make children safer in their everyday lives. We need to take the time to make sure we do this right.
